Leave the Driving to Us Robots

A highway of driverless, computer-operated trucks may be in your future.

NEW YORK ( TheStreet) -- By now, most people have heard about Google's ( GOOG) driverless cars with spinning "top hats" on the roof. Nevada was the first state to authorize such vehicles, and at least four others have followed. The reason why you're not likely to see a car with full driverless capability in 2014 is cost.

According to USA Today, installing the equipment needed to enable your car to leave your driveway without a driver costs more than $100,000.

The driverless price tag continues to fall, while auto manufacturers including Toyota ( TM), Audi, and Mercedes Benz are beginning to announce cars that take a step forward to a world of fully driverless cars.

A bigger impact for consumers may come from within the trucking industry.

The highest-paying truck-driving jobs go to long-haul drivers, the truckers who may come home only once or twice a week, sleeping in their trucks on other nights. Compensation is relatively higher, because they are away from home longer.

I talked at length to industry veteran Larry Weidenhoeft, a driver with more than 25 years of experience, about costs, challenges, regulations and pay in the industry. As our discussion progressed, it became increasingly clear that the days of the making-a-living-by-driving-a-truck are numbered. Wage compression and job losses for truckers are as likely as blacksmiths shoeing horses were 120 years ago.

According to Weidenhoeft, an average over-the-road driver makes about 38 cents a mile and drives about 140,000 miles a year. That works out to just over $53,000 a year in wages. Unfortunately for truck drivers, a company doesn't need to save $53,000 a year to make replacing people economically feasible. Here's why:

There are a lot of rules and regulations for truck drivers. For example, a driver is only allowed to be on the clock up to 70 hours over an eight-day period. They're also allowed to be on the clock only up to 11 hours before taking a mandatory 10-hour break.